Blackbringer (10 page)

“Nay. When first she came I wondered. She does make you want to believe! Wait until you see her; you’ll understand.”

Magpie let out a humorless laugh. “Ach, I’ve seen her!”

“Oh, aye?”

“And she’s not like to forget it soon. . . .” Magpie chewed her lip.

“What do you mean?”

“I, er . . . sort of . . . turned her hair into worms.”

Poppy stared at her for a long moment, her face frozen in disbelief. At last she whispered, “Nay . . .”

“Aye.”

A guffaw erupted from Poppy that threatened to knock both faeries from their branch. Her face turned as red as her hair and she couldn’t stop laughing. Magpie had to start in too, and soon both lasses were clinging to the branch, wheezing with laughter. When she was able to gasp out the words, Poppy asked, “How did you do it?”

Magpie’s laughter died away. “I don’t know! I didn’t even vision any glyphs. I don’t know what glyphs I’d even use if I was trying. It just . . . happened.”

Poppy looked puzzled. “Are you sure it was you who did it?”

Magpie shrugged. She knew how it sounded. That wasn’t how magic worked. She thought of the curls of light that had wavered off her fingertips. She wasn’t about to tell Poppy
that
and get a blank stare in return, so she said, “Well, Vesper believes it, so I reckon I’ve made a nice new enemy, my first day back in Dreamdark.”

“Oh, Vesper, she—” Poppy began, but fell suddenly silent. “Old Father,” she said with surprise, her eyebrows shooting up as she glanced at Magpie. “Blessings to you and the earth at your roots.” Her head cocked toward the linden tree in an attitude of listening. “Aye, very pleased she’s come back.
Why?
I don’t—” She looked at Magpie, wide-eyed, and said, “Old Father Linden wonders why you’ve come back to Dreamdark.”

“For true?”

Poppy nodded, seeming stunned that the ancient tree was speaking.

“Well—er . . . ,” Magpie stammered, caught off guard. “I . . . I came to find the Magruwen.”

Poppy looked even more stunned. Her expression hovered between disbelief and dismay. “You’re jesting.”

Magpie shook her head. She saw Poppy’s eyes go softly out of focus as she listened to the tree for a time before saying, “Nay, faeries have all but forgotten him. He’s only legend now.” She paused. “The dreamer . . . I like that.” She paused again, then murmured, “Aye, I never thought of it that way. . . .”

There followed a long listening that made Magpie antsy. Poppy’s eyes were far away and her brow creased with worry, and Magpie longed to hear what she was hearing. She tried not to wiggle. Long moments passed before Poppy said faintly, “Aye, old Father, I’ll tell her . . . ,” and blinked her eyes back into focus.

“Poppy!” said Magpie. “What did he say?”

“Did you know they used to call him the dreamer?” she asked slowly. “Because he dreamed a world into creation he couldn’t even live in.”

“The Magruwen?”

“Aye,” answered Poppy, sadness sweeping over her face. “He made a world he couldn’t even touch. Have you ever thought of that?”

Puzzled, Magpie shook her head.

“Wouldn’t you think . . . creatures of
fire . . .
wouldn’t you think they’d make a different sort of world? One that wasn’t so
. . . fragile
?”

Magpie saw what Poppy was getting at. For fire elementals, spinning through the eternal blackness of the beginning, to come together and make this delicate place, these fern fronds, these woods . . . it was a beautiful dream, but not a sensible one. They could wear skins to keep from setting fire to their creations, but it wouldn’t be the same. Magpie’s grandfather had said it was like holding hands while wearing gloves. The air elementals could at least dance through the treetops in their true forms and caress the birds they carried in their arms, but the Djinn never could, not without burning everything to cinders. The textures of things, which they’d rendered with such artistry, must always have been a mystery to their own touch.

“Maybe they didn’t make it for themselves,” Magpie murmured. “Maybe they made it for . . .
us
.”

“Maybe. And it’s perfect, nay?”

Magpie nodded. It was.

“He’s asleep in a deep place now,” Poppy said.

Magpie’s stomach flipped. “Did the tree tell you where—”

“There’s a school for humans just outside Dreamdark. In the gardens there’s a dry well. That’s where the Magruwen dreams, at the bottom of it, alone and forgotten.”

Dazed, the two faeries stared at each other. Magpie realized she’d had only dim expectations of succeeding in her quest. It hit her now that she was truly going to see the Djinn King, and a shiver seized her.

“In a well,” Poppy said, a sheen of tears blurring her eyes. “The Djinn King! At the bottom of a well in the belly of the world. It isn’t right!”

“Neh, it isn’t. Did the tree say . . . why?”

Poppy shook her head. “Nay, but he did say it’s high time someone had the nerve to wake him.”

Magpie took a deep breath. “I reckon it is.”

“But Magpie . . . you don’t really mean to?”

“Aye, but I do. Come on, I got to go tell the crows!” She stood and sprang from the branch, shooting out through the tickling leaves. “Thank you, Father Linden!” she called as she went.

“Blessings, old Father,” Poppy said reverently to the tree, then opened her own wings and followed.

Magpie and Poppy snuck around the side of the stage caravan just as the play ended and cheers erupted in the Ring. They slipped in through the back door to wait while the crows took their bows.

The caravan was even messier than usual. Gowns and tentacles were strewn everywhere from quick costume changes, and every trunk was flung open, so the lasses had to leap over them with a lift of wing. “It’s some fright in here,” Magpie said, but Poppy was taking it all in with shining eyes.

“It’s grand,” she said, surveying the glitter of velvets, snakeskins, and manny jewelry that covered nearly every surface. “Is that where you sleep?” She gestured up at Magpie’s little bunk.

“Aye, home sweet . . .” Magpie’s words trailed off when she saw that her patchwork curtain was yanked askew. “What the skive?” she growled, flying to it and not seeing how Poppy’s eyes widened in shock to hear her curse. Her book lay out on her quilt. She always put it under her pillow, and she always drew her curtain closed. She thought immediately of Lady Vesper. Her eyes narrowed and she sniffed the air, detecting in it a scent of intrusion. It wasn’t faerie, though, but creature. And there was a hint of something else, clean as snow and utterly foreign.

“Magpie,” said Poppy, who’d been watching with curiosity as the huntress awoke in her friend. “What is it?”

“Someone’s been in here,” Magpie answered, reaching for her book. She could feel her protective spells were still intact so she was startled when a slip of paper dislodged from the pages. It fluttered to the floor at Poppy’s feet, a trail of light unfurling behind it like the tail of a comet. Poppy picked the paper up and Magpie could tell her friend didn’t see the blaze-bright aura that hung on it, slower to fade than the brief traceries she’d seen that morning flying into Never Nigh. Poppy handed the paper to her and she took it and sniffed it like a feral creature.

The strange pure smell was strong on it. Wary, Magpie turned the paper over and read it, and the ferocity left her eyes and was replaced by puzzlement.

“What?” Poppy asked.

“This wasn’t in my book before,” she answered.

Poppy moved to her side and looked at the paper. It was writ in an elegant script.

“Magruwen!” exclaimed Poppy. “But . . . who put it there?”

“Flummox me,” Magpie said. “I haven’t told anyone but you and the tree why I’ve come!”

“Could the crows have put it here?”

“Neh. They’d just give it to me.”

“A mystery, Magpie!” Poppy said, excited. “And a riddle! What can it mean, a thousand years of undreamed life?”

Magpie puzzled on it. “Undreamed life? A life that hasn’t started yet, that hasn’t even been dreamed up . . .”

“But something you can bake into a cake?”

“Like an egg? There’s a life inside that hasn’t been dreamed up yet.”

“And will never be life, if you crack it into a cake.”

Magpie shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, looking at the strange recipe card. She suddenly squinted and looked closer. “Jacksmoke!”

Again, Poppy looked startled by Magpie’s cursing. Magpie caught her look this time and blushed. “I mean, skiffle. . . .”

“What is it?” Poppy asked.

Magpie opened her book and leafed through it until she found a page marked with an iridescent snakeskin. Her eyes shifted rapidly back and forth between the book and the recipe. “Poppy, look.” Pasted to the page was a scrap of parchment gone sepia with great age, once ripped in half and carefully seamed back together. It read

“The Blackbringer?” said Poppy. “That old bogey? My mum used to scare me with tales about him so I wouldn’t stay out past dark.”

“Aye, that’s just an old nursery story. But look, see on the recipe here, the initial
B
? Now look at the big
B
on
Blackbringer.”

Poppy looked back and forth between them. “It’s the same,” she said. “Sure! And look at the
h
on
half
and
home.
These were written by the same hand!” She glanced up at Magpie.

But Magpie was chewing her lip and shaking her head, bewildered. “Sure looks like, but skive, it’s impossible!” Her voice had an edge of suspicion to it as she said, “Poppy, this parchment? I found it in the ruins of Shaith Ev, the temple of the Ithuriel. It’s part of a letter from the age of the devil wars.”

Poppy’s mouth dropped open. “For true? That’s old. . . .”

“Twenty-five thousand years. And that’s not all.” Magpie traced the
B
on
Blackbringer
with her fingertip. “It was written by Bellatrix!”

The two lasses fell silent and stood looking at each other in disbelief.

“Ach, there y’are, ye treacherous twitch!”

Magpie and Poppy both swung toward the door to see Maniac in his lady wig, glowering in at them. “Feather . . . ,” Magpie said sheepishly, “I’m sorry—”

He jerked his head so the wig sailed off and landed in a hairy heap at her feet. “Where ye been? Sure ye come back once it’s all over, neh? Sneaky as an imp!”

“Glad to hear she’s not all crow,” said a growly little voice out of sight.

Maniac turned his head. “Good-imp,” he croaked, “ye mistake me. She’s crow straight through. ’Tis only when she’s wicked that she’s imp.”

“Then may she always be wicked!”

“Snoshti?” Magpie leapt the prop trunks to get to the door and peered around for the imp marm. She saw her there, so small and quizzical, surrounded by beetles, and her heart swelled. She dropped to her knees before her and flung her arms round the little creature. “Snoshti!” she cried. Her whiskers tickled just the same after all these years.

“How wild ye look!” Snoshti declared, holding Magpie at arm’s length to examine her. “Brown as a gypsy and skinny—”

“As a twig,” Magpie finished. “I know! And you look just the same as always. I missed you fierce, Snoshti! You should have come away with us when we went. We needed you!”

“Blessings!” Snoshti cried. “The world’s too big for the likes of me, and flying gives me a flutter. Where can ye hide in the sky? Neh, sky’s no place for an imp.” She eyed Magpie’s feather skirt. “Ach, but look at ye, lass! Ye’ll have a beak on next and be squawking like a crow!”

“She squawks as good as any of us!” said Maniac gruffly. “And curses too.”

“Mags!” cried Pigeon, landing with a flutter beside her. “Where’d ye go? I was fierce shivered that queen would get ye!”

“Piff!” Magpie said. “I’d like to see her try!”

“She will,” said Snoshti.

“What?” asked Magpie, surprised.

“She will try, make no mistake. Better ye lot come away now, caravans and all, than stay right under her nose.” Snoshti jerked her head toward the palace. They all looked up and saw a figure silhouetted in the tower window, standing perfectly still. They shifted uneasily to feel they were being watched.